Gandhi family looks to heal rift with son

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When Mahatma Gandhi was cremated, legend has it that his estranged eldest son, Harilal, a Muslim convert, alcoholic and vagrant, either boycotted the ceremony or arrived too late to perform his filial duties.

In the outpouring of grief that followed, Gandhi’s ashes were poured into dozens of small steel urns that were distributed around India, denying him the proper Hindu burial that he had requested.

Sixty years after Gandhi’s murder, Harilal’s granddaughter is to scatter some of his recently discovered ashes in the Arabian Sea in a ritual designed to lay the Mahatma to rest — and heal the rift